ROA's Urban Jungle: Street Art Animals Invade Melbourne

Belgian street artist ROA, known for his monumental black-and-white animal murals on abandoned buildings worldwide, presents 'Annihilation' at Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne until April 5. The site-specific exhibition, concluding his residency in the Australian city, features dozens of found objects—rusty metal sheets, old cabinet doors, and drawers—collected from the streets or donated by locals. These unconventional surfaces serve as canvases for ROA's signature depictions of local fauna and endangered species, creating a fantastical bestiary that symbolizes nature demanding attention. A video by Byron Bowman Kehoe, Michael Hurren, and Trevor Holcomb documents the artist's process. ROA began his career in the late 1990s in Ghent, Belgium, before expanding globally.